Pain Halved
by Kintatsu
Summary: Pain shared is...
1. Ami

For as long as she could remember, Ami had experienced the phantom sensations of scraped palms and skinned knees. Logically, she must have been confused by this at some point, but she'd also known the explanation for as long as she could remember: her soulmate was an active boy, the complement to her own quiet, studious nature. In time, she'd come to simply accept it.

\\_/

When she was six years old, the sensations changed; sharp impacts, followed by dull stinging, on her knuckles, her shins, the heels of her hands. Every so often, she'd feel a blow to her torso that almost knocked the breath out of her. And always, always at the same time every day. She dwelled in confusion and concern, until she chanced upon her school's karate club in session.

\\_/

Starting when she was seven, she was abruptly introduced to the feeling of a slipped knife scoring her fingers, a slight chemical burn in the nonexistent cut, the pinprick, scattergun burn of hot particles splattering her arms. As she watched her mother cooking on one of her rare days off, it clicked.

\\_/

When she was ten, there was a disruption: the now familiar impacts occurred at the _wrong time_ , in the _wrong sequence_ , and were sharper, harder, aimed more cruelly. She rubbed her jaw as she felt her teeth jar from a blow she herself hadn't taken. The disruptions, while infrequent, and irregular, were nevertheless recurring. Every instance was accompanied by both relief and dread, for while they served as proof her soulmate yet lived, they might also herald his death.

\\_/

When she was eleven, two things happened that made her doubt her assumptions as to her soulmate's identity. The first was that she caught herself looking at an older girl the way her female classmates looked at older boys. The second was that she felt a short, sharp shock from her earlobes, the kind her classmates had described after getting their ears pierced. It was now _distinctly_ plausible that she'd been considering the wrong demographic.

\\_/

When she was thirteen, she felt the single most _wrong_ sensation she thought she'd ever experience. She'd had warning, of course – in the form of intermittent bites – but she hadn't known it for what it was. As the (tearing, stinging, _ohgodstop_ ) feeling between her legs started to fade, as she started to uncurl, she consoled herself with the thought that at least she _knew_ which half of the species to look at, now. The next day, her knuckles stung, once.

\\_/

When she was fourteen, she made her first friend. Things got weird after that. Several months later, that first friend introduced her to...

…

…

…

… Oh. Oh dear God in heaven. Introduced her to the loveliest, most graceful, most unabashedly _genuine_ creature she'd ever seen.

Her name was Makoto.


	2. Mako

Mako had no idea who her soulmate was. Sure, she had a hint, in the form of a general _lack_ of phantom pain, but all that told her was that he was more cautious than she was. Which described most people. Back to square one. As many scrapes and bruises as she got, she hoped he'd have some idea how to find her.

\\_/

She met him two years after her parents died, two years after she started venting her grief on bullies. He was older than her, by about a year, and willing to be a source of companionship and comfort to her. A few months after she met him, they started dating. A few more months after that, she slept with him. He dumped her the next day. She punched a wall, and cried.

\\_/

A few months before her fourteenth birthday, for just a moment, she felt a hand tangled in her hair, nails digging into her scalp. A moment after that, she felt an instant of biting cold. She couldn't be sure what had happened, but her best guess was that he'd been shoved headlong into freezing water (she was wrong, but she couldn't begin to imagine the truth). When she felt thin straps of some sort digging into her palms the next week, she breathed a sigh of relief.

\\_/

She was officially concerned at this point. Her soulmate had gone from barely any injuries at all, to frequent affliction of what she knew damn well to be combat injuries (plus biting cold or, almost as frequently, searing heat). She was pretty sure he'd been bound in barbed wire at one point! With any luck, this move to Azabu-Juuban would take her near enough to help him. She'd been hearing some odd rumors about Azabu-Juuban.

\\_/

She was fourteen, a Senshi, and in the company of friends and sisters-in-arms. She was also in a narrow alley that made it _slightly_ difficult to maneuver, a state of affairs not helped by Sailor Moon, Mercury, and her own attempts to address Zoisite all at once. Then, as Sailor Moon attempted to gesture for her usual speech, she hit Mercury in the face... and Jupiter _felt_ it. Before she could even begin to consider the implications of this, Mercury fell forward, putting her lower assets right in Jupiter's face. If her own reaction to _that_ was any indication, she'd have no problem adjusting to this new information.

\\_/

"Uh, hey, uh," Mako stammered.

Ami looked up from her book. "Hm, yes? What is it?"

"Um, in the alley, earlier," Mako took a moment to wipe the sweat of her palms, then continued, "Usagi got you in the face?"

Ami raised an eyebrow, waiting for Mako to continue. Mako took a breath, and forged ahead to the important part, "I felt it."

There was a pause, as Ami processed what Mako had said, then her eyes widened and her hands went to cover her mouth as it sank in.

"You- you started learning martial arts when we were six years old."

Mako chuckled, "Heh, yeah."

"You started getting into real fights at ten."

Mako averted her eyes. "Ah... yeah."

"When you were thirteen..." Ami trailed off, not wanting to say it.

"Wha-," Mako furrowed her brow, then looked apologetic as she figured it out, "Oh! Oh. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm _so_ sorry. I thought he might be- he wasn't. And I'm sorry."

Ami place a hand on Mako's arm, understanding in her eyes, "Don't apologize, I'm sure-" she cut off as her gaze hardened, then restarted, "I _know_ he could have said something before it got that far."

"He dumped me the next day," Mako said, smiling wryly.

"Then he's an _idiot_ as well as an asshole," Ami said with conviction.

Mako barked a laugh, "Hah! Yeah." She looked Ami in the eyes, affection in her own. "Yeah, he is."


	3. The End?

It was cold, colder even than Mercury's fog, and the wind drove the cold's teeth deep. They had to keep moving, Usagi's soulmate was held captive in the enemy's stronghold, and they were pursued by the advance guard. Then Jupiter turned and stopped, intending to buy time.

She succeeded, with blinding glory, Mercury screaming her agony. As the spots faded from their vision, they saw a spiked tower of fresh ice; at its base, two charred ruins of winged corpses; near its peak, an all-too-recognizable patch of brown and green. Usagi climbed the tower, hoping to keep her Jupiter, her Mako-chan, with her in the land of the living; Mercury- no, _Ami_ , just throbbed, and burned, and tingled unpleasantly with every erratic beat of Mako's heart. Then the pain stopped.

Ami held her breath as Usagi howled her grief, waiting for the next pulse, the next confirmation that Mako yet lived. It didn't come. She took a shuddering breath as it sank in that she'd never feel Mako's pain again. They had to keep moving, Usagi's soulmate was held captive in the enemy's stronghold, and they were pursued by the advance guard, now reduced, but still deadly, still capable of the ultimate deception. Sailor Moon wasn't moving, Usagi was hysteri- _what_ did she just say.

The slap came as a surprise to them both, but Jupiter- _Mako's_ sacrifice could not be made in vain, rendered meaningless. Usagi collected herself, and Sailor Moon allowed herself to be lead away by Mars and Venus. Mercury stood, intending to buy time.

As the fireball rolled toward her, she added her cold to the Arctic's, buying _herself_ time to do what needed to be done. The vines wrapped around her. Her palmtop smashed into the gem. She descended to welcoming, unforgiving ice.

The rest is silence.


End file.
